


A Spectre of Hope

by Laurasauras



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Dream Bubbles (Homestuck), F/M, Gender Identity, Pale Romance | Moirallegiance, Species Dysphoria
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-05
Updated: 2020-02-05
Packaged: 2021-02-28 04:13:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,072
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22567633
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Laurasauras/pseuds/Laurasauras
Summary: Time and space don't work the same in the dream bubbles. Callie is prepared to wait an infinity and hope that she gets rescued before she's destroyed for good. Cronus doesn't expect to find someone who can actually understand him, or for it to awaken new, pale feelings in him.
Relationships: Calliope & Cronus Ampora
Comments: 17
Kudos: 46





	A Spectre of Hope

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sandbirde](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sandbirde/gifts).



> Thank you Sandbirde for the fantastic challenge of a rarepair I never would have thought of!

For as long as she can remember, whenever she closed her eyes and let her brother have their body, Callie’s eyes opened in a body that was just her own, on Prospit. When she opens them this time, she knows she isn’t really on Prospit. The illusion falls away as she remembers turning to see an agent of Derse in her room. Her brother … he really went that far. She was stupid to think he wouldn't.

Callie has been careful not to even _think_ her brother’s name for long enough that she thinks she’ll manage now, especially once she stops thinking about how important it is that she doesn’t think his name. She's found a corner of what she knows to be a dream bubble, away from the cheerful and _loud_ troll she really would have liked to get to know better under other circumstances. But her brother's aspect is time and she won't risk the company of someone in the same reds he will, is and was wearing.

Almost no one comes to her corner. Which is good. She's got a command of space, even without playing the game and even in a place where space and time tangle together, which means that she's very good at manipulating the bubbles. Or maybe it's her strong imagination. Either way, she uses her power to stay in a featureless void. It's safest. Her brother won't rest while her ghost exists.

It's good that she's alone. Sometimes a lost troll or human will stumble across her and she'll assess the danger they pose to see if she risks a small amount of company. She finds herself with a hoofbeastsona she can't wait to show Dirk if she ever sees him again.

But while the Zahhaks are diverting company she risks for the space of a conversation, there's another troll that seems to appear way too frequently, if frequently can be said to be a thing in the bubbles. 

He has a purple sign on his white t-shirt, two horns that flick backwards with his slicked back hair, and an intense gaze. He followed Horrus once, and since then he keeps returning. Callie has stopped risking removing her trollsona disguise. Running away from him doesn’t seem to be doing anything.

This is why she lost, she tells herself. She always _retreats,_ she’s scared of everything. And now that she’s dead, it’s so much worse. Even though she should feel free, even though she _is_ free for the first time in her existence, she feels lost. 

She was never really scared of her brother, much as he aggravated her. She thought she had a chance and she thought she knew they were going to play the game together, so the tension of their eventual battle was distant in her mind. And she knew so much lore!

That’s the thing that’s killing her, metaphorically. She has no idea what happens now, the pages that referred to the end of Roxy and Dirk’s relatives’ meteor journey and final supreme conflicts were torn out and she has recently become very aware that plans do not always correspond with action. She has no clouds to guide her. And she doesn’t dare talk to ghosts or sleepers who might know what’s going on.

Jane will come for her. Or Roxy or the boys. She just needs to stay alive until then. Or, rather, present. And that means not taking risks on troll boys who don’t wear the reassuring dark blue of void.

‘Hey, hold up will ya!’ he calls one time when she’s a little slower running away than she would like.

‘Shhh!!!’ she insists.

He holds both his hands up, eyes wide and sincere. 

‘C’mon sugar, why are you runnin’ from me?’ he asks. ‘You don’t even know me.’

‘I’m hiding!’ she says. ‘I can’t attract his attention!’

‘How’s one fella gonna stop you from hidin’?’ he asks, smiling broadly to reveal a set of very pointy teeth. ‘I’m the fella,’ he clarifies, smile wavering somewhat before he sets it to maximum wattage again. ‘C’mon, I know you let Horuss come around.’

Callie turns to face him properly, feet shoulder-width apart and believing as hard as she can that she has the confidence of a troll. His posture is contrastingly loose, weight all uneven on one side and slouching so much he looks on the brink of falling over. As she assesses the threat he poses, he pulls a packet of cigarettes out of his pocket, and with a casual flick of the wrist prompts on of the cigarettes to jump partially up. He has an expression of genuine delight on his face for a second before he takes the smoke in his lips and smirks at her. 

‘What’s your classpect?’ Callie asks.

‘Bard of hope,’ he answers easily. ‘Never earned my wings or nothin’, but I’m not a bad bard. If we can find a guitar around here I’ll show you.’

Callie hesitates. She knows nothing about bards, or not in the context of the game. Hope shouldn’t be attention _attracting_ even if it’s not obnubilating like void. And she needs to be braver. She nods.

‘Only for a little bit!’ she says. ‘Ghosts tend to clump and I really am giving it my best go at staying low to the ground.’

She takes a deep breath and tucks her blonde wig behind her ear like she’s seen Roxy do a million times before stepping forward, holding out her hand.

‘My name’s Callie,’ she says.

‘Cronus,’ he says, taking her hand and pressing a kiss to her fingers. 

Callie’s eyes widen and she hides her hands behind her back when he releases it. Is _that_ why he’s been following her? That’s what Earth movies would tell her is happening, but she’s not a human, or even a troll. She’s just … 

‘You attached to the blank canvas thing you got goin’ on here?’ Cronus asks. ‘No harm in a little scenery, right?’

But there is harm, possibly. What if more ghosts show up? Callie licks her lips nervously and Cronus cocks his head curiously. Oh fuck, her tongue!

‘You could make scenery happen,’ she says, hoping to draw his attention away from her real identity.

Cronus shrugs and looks upwards contemplatively. He takes his cigarette out and holds it between the tips of two fingers.

‘Other folk can do this by twitchin’ their sniff-nubs or whatever, but I gotta do it like this.’

He takes a breath and his eyes dart back down to Callie before he resumes staring at something she can’t see. 

_’My kismesis has depths t’make the ocean weep,  
His soul carved with scars no one could heal,  
And I take all the minutes he gives me,  
Though the ocean has blackness I’ll never feel.’_

The ocean that surrounded Dirk’s house didn’t really have a sound, and Jake rarely went near his, but Callie knows that’s what she’s hearing even if her speakers never did it justice. Water crashing against land, then fleeing back into itself in an infinite dance of push and pull. She can _taste_ it, and it’s nothing she’s ever felt on her tongue before, so different to the stale air of her bedroom or the brightness of her diet. Not even the clear air of Prospit was this fresh. It tastes like freedom.

_’Underneath the twin moons he returns,  
Returns to the shore just for me.  
But the hate that we feel just isn’t enough,  
To keep him on land when there’s sea.’_

Craggy rocks rise under their feet and push them violently upwards. The bubble, previously visible but unlit, shines with pink and green light that lingers on Cronus’s face as he looks back down at Callie. She flinches when cold water mists onto her face and takes a step away from the spray of the waves.

‘That was lovely,’ Callie says. 

‘Naw,’ Cronus says, smiling crookedly. He slips his cigarette back between his lips. He still hasn’t lit it. ‘Be better if I had my guitar. Did I mention I play guitar?’

‘How do you manage with your claws?’ Callie asks.

Cronus’s eyes go wide for a second before he laughs and waves her question away. 

‘Bet you never saw the ocean like this when you was alive,’ he says.

‘No,’ Callie agrees.

‘So, we gonna make out now or what?’

Callie shrieks and skitters backwards, wand out to conjure her _completely uninhabited_ void again. Cronus and his ocean disappear as she waves her wand wildly. 

She banishes him the next time she sees him, and the time after that. It’s difficult to keep track of something like the frequency of which someone visits someone else in the bubbles. Nothing feels real. She’s not sure if anything _is_ real. She doesn’t know whether she should still hope for her friends to come back for her.

So when he comes again, she lets him. She’s had more practice in the bubbles now and as she steps towards him, a meadow springs up under her feet. 

‘Hey kitten,’ Cronus says. 

‘If you try and make a move on me again, I will shoot you,’ Callie says, holding her wand up with a steadiness she’s only earned through practicing the movement an uncountable number of times.

Cronus holds up his hands.

‘I know how to take a hint, babe, just chill, would ya?’

‘Why did you come back?’ Callie asks. 

‘’Cause you’re like me,’ he says. ‘Well, sorta. In as much as anyone could be like me.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I know you’re not really a troll,’ he says.

Callie’s heart sinks. It’s not that she necessarily thought her disguise was perfect. It’s just. She knows that too. She has to tell herself that. She tells her reflection, “You’re not really a troll, Calliope,” and it breaks her heart. 

‘You are,’ she says.

Cronus’s face falls and she suddenly understands what he meant.

‘What do you want to be?’ she asks.

‘Human,’ he spits.

Callie sits down and pats the grass next to her. Cronus hesitates only a moment before he joins her. With a wiggle of her nose, just to amuse him, Callie conjures her face paint.

‘May I?’ she asks.

Cronus swallows and looks nervous.

‘Humans don’t do pale,’ he says.

‘The humans I know are so pale it’s blinding,’ Callie replies, blending colours on her sponge. ‘But this doesn’t have to be that, if you don’t want.’

‘Do what you wanna do,’ Cronus says, with fragile carelessness. ‘I thought maybe, you know, if I were human, it’d be simpler. Quadrants make me dizzy. I don’t know why you’d want in on this.’

Callie decides to give Cronus the light brown of Roxy’s skin. She hasn’t done this kind of face before, never blended highlights like this or added brown freckles across a nose. She hasn’t painted another person, full stop. But Cronus keeps still and closes his eyes when he’s told to. 

‘I’m not human,’ Callie says. ‘I won’t say what I am because I don’t know what will draw his attention. But my kind only feel pitch, and I suppose I want the illusion that I can be more than that. That I have the capacity to be gentle and complex and to live in a society full of people.’

She paints his fingers too, then sprays her work to set it in place. She conjures a long sleeve shirt, some fingerless gloves and a beanie. Cronus carefully changes shirts, pulling his collar away to avoid the hopefully dry paint. He puts on the gloves and Callie adjusts the beanie over his horns. A mirror appears in her hand and she holds it up for him. His mouth falls open.

‘What do you think?’ she asks. 

‘You did it.’ His voice is almost emotionless, like he didn’t think it was possible and can’t muster up a reaction to something so unbelievable. ‘I don’t … I don’t know how I feel.’

Callie sighs and goes to put the mirror away but Cronus grabs her wrist and keeps it still. If she was as strong as a troll … She scoots until she’s next to him and looks in the mirror with him.

‘Is this better?’ Cronus asks. 

‘I don’t know.’

*

When Cronus visits Callie again, his skin is grey and his t-shirt is black, the short sleeves rolled up to mimic a tank top. His cigarette is missing and his hair falls in short waves with no obvious product in it.

Callie’s garden is invaded by sand until she’s on a beach. She scrambles to her feet and pulls her wand out. Cronus knocks it aside as he approaches and then his hand is on her waist, the other one an inch from the side of her face.

‘Cronus,’ Callie objects.

‘You said you wanted pale,’ Cronus says.

‘Did I?’

‘I _know_ you wanted pale,’ he growls. ‘And I didn’t, I didn’t want any part of that _bullshit_ where they declawed us and made us tell the shitbloods that they were perfect little creatures, more precious for the shortness of their pathetic lives, padding the world around them as if that’s _living.'_

‘You—’ Callie starts. Then it connects. ‘You’re a Beforan.’

‘And I didn’t want them pacifying the monster in me, I didn’t want there to be this viciousness in me that demands that I take my place as royalty. I wanted to be normal, to not need changing, to just get company and sex out of my quadrants, to only have one.’

‘Cronus …’ Callie says. He doesn’t understand humans at all, their love is not the simpler option.

‘And you fucked it up,’ he growls. He drags a harsh breath through his sharp, bared teeth, so close to Callie’s face. She’s never been close to anyone like this. She doesn’t know why she trusts him not to hurt her. ‘You made me as close to human as I was gonna get and it didn’t change _shit.’_

Callie lifts a shaking hand and strokes his hair back and out of his face. His thumb lands gently on her cheek and he drags it like the hand of a clock. It comes back grey when he pulls back and Callie closes her eyes as her cosplay flickers out. Intention matters here.

‘Dressing up didn’t change shit,’ he repeats, softer. ‘It just made the gap feel wider.’

‘I’m a monster,’ Callie whispers. 

‘No,’ Cronus insists, with so much feeling his voice breaks on the word. ‘You’re soft and pale and you don’t deserve this isolation, I don’t care if it’s necessary. It’s not fair, Callie. You met me and you _saw_ me and you wanted to help.’ 

He strokes her cheek again, and Callie opens her eyes, afraid of how he must be looking at her as his skin touches her scales but more afraid of the hope in her chest. He’s not disgusted, though.

‘You can’t—’ she protests. _’I_ can’t!’

‘Tell me you don’t want to break me into tiny pieces and rearrange them so they make sense. Tell me you don’t have the patience to make it barely hurt. Tell me you don’t want to bleach my worst qualities out of me with the fire of the sun.’ He takes a breath and releases her. He steps backwards. ‘I’ll leave, Callie. If you want me to. If this is all you can have.’

The sand trickles into the void and the uncertain texture under her feet is replaced with nothing. A blackness that might as well be a floor, but featureless and the safety of it feels like it hurts something in her soul.

‘Cronus, look at my bloody face,’ she says, her voice shaky. ‘When I say I’m a monster, I’m not being dramatic. _He_ is my brother. He consumed me and he is killing everyone in these bubbles for a chance to kill me for good. That’s who I am, that’s what my kind _does._ We destroy universes to get at each other because everything we are is just a reaction, a binary opposition to our other half. Our fates are causally and irrevocably intertwined and I can’t be more than that.’

Callie sinks to the floor and hugs her knees, burying her face in the soft fabric of her pants. 

Cronus crouches in front of her and waits until she looks up.

‘I pity you so much,’ he says. ‘And I don’t even want to sleep with you. Why not try being Callie, Cronus’s moirail. I never wanted a moirail before but you make the fuckin’ thing make sense. A guy like me needs a guy like you.’

‘A … guy?’

Cronus’s eyes widen and his cheeks tinge purple, ear fins flicking close to his head.

‘Sorry kid, bad assumption to make, should’a asked. I just, with the suit, and you’re not exactly fierce … but given your reaction I’m guessin’ somewhere along the “they” to “she” side’a things.’

Callie’s wanted for a very long time not to just be her brother’s opposite. She doesn’t especially know why the “she” part of it is relevant. That’s not something she can decide in a few seconds as her fr—as her _moirail_ waits for her reply.

‘Can I change my answer later?’ she asks.

‘Yeah,’ Cronus says gently. ‘Stopping being defined by me doesn’t mean goin’ back to being defined by him. We _got_ eternity but we don’t have to use it.’

‘No, I mean—’ Oh. That’s actually very sweet. That’s not how she expected him to respond at all. ‘I meant about the “she”,’ she says.

‘Oh,’ Cronus says. He pushes his hair back, the tension seemingly eased a little. ‘Yeah, of course. As many times as you want, I’m real good at keepin’ pronouns straight. One of my many talents, not that I like to brag about it.’

Callie slowly unfolds so that she’s kneeling in front of Cronus. She reaches up and cups his face with her little green hand. 

‘Okay. Then I, a person who currently uses “she” and is temporarily foregoing costuming, would like very much to be your moirail.’

Cronus smiles and places his hand over hers, turning his face to kiss her palm before holding it on his cheek again. 

‘I didn’t even have to use my song!’ he says. He looks at her with expectation in his eyes and she grins before willingly saying what he’s hoping she will.

‘Can I hear it anyway?’


End file.
